...or something like that. I'm actually looking forward to the new show up at the contemporary. It's a traveling show and they've been working hard to put it together. Lots of smoke and mirrors, but like, art.
Michel Delacroix, Lisetta, Ferdinand, Saverio, Edward, 1995
The shadow—literally, the absence of light—represents something that is beyond the object yet inseparable from it. In many of the works included in Phantasmagoria, shadows are used to allude to death, the obscure, and the unnamable, and to construct allegories of loss and disappearance. In several of these pieces, the artists evoke the history of the shadow theater, as in wall drawings by Danish artist Julie Nord, in a video animation by South African artist William Kentridge, and in French artist Christian Boltanski’s shadows from a rotating figure, recalling imagery from the carnival as well as figurines used to celebrate the Mexican day of the dead.
Mist, breath, and fog are often associated with mystery; in their double status as perceptible
yet almost nonexistent phenomena, they suggest evanescence or absence. In the work by French artist Michel Delacroix, pans of water are elevated on tripod bases, casting shadows of their silhouettes on the walls while eerie patterns of light reflected from the water’s surface dance above the shadows, activated by viewers walking past. Throughout the installations presented here, artists’ use of shadows and/or actual fog and mist evokes the alluring enigma and magic of Phantasmagoria.
So ya. Totally looking forward to this. I'm going up for lunch on Friday the 31st and then again on Sunday the 2nd so drop a line if you want to join.
TONIGHT! King Brit is at Next Door for a special 80s sesh. Those have been going extremely well by the way. I can't think of a better way to get through the hump of a week than with a sunset drink at the Hanohano Room then sweating it all off at Next Door. Whatchoothink?
